About 125 people, mostly women, marched from Tucson Police Department headquarters, 270 S. Stone, to the Joel D. Valdez Main Library, 101 N. Stone, to protest what they said are callous and indifferent attitudes toward women who are raped or molested.

The first Slut Walk was held in Toronto, Canda, earlier this year, after a police officer there blamed provocatively dressed women for being victimized.

Since, Slut Walks have been held in the U.S., United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Sweden, Argentina, Ireland, South Africa, Austria, the Netherlands and even Kyrgyzstan.

Tucson's first Slut Walk was organized to raise awareness about the negative connotation of the word "slut," and the discriminatory attitudes toward victims of sexual assault, the Facebook page for the event said.

Bringing the event to Tucson was "unbelievably easy. A lot of people feel strongly about this," said Rowan Frost, one of the event's organizers.

Most people have the same attitude as the one expressed by the police officer in Toronto, and it's time that blaming of victim stops, and that perpetrators are held accountable, Frost said.

Although Hayley Nicholas missed the walk, she feels very strongly about the subject.

Nicholas was sexually assaulted on her way home from work at night, one block west of the downtown police station, in late 1998. She was beaten, strangled and thrown into a car, she said.

"I saw animal fear in his eyes. He couldn't stop," Nicholas said.

To escape rape and certain death she jumped out of a moving vehicle on West Ajo Way, she said. "The car was headed to open desert."

A police officer found her collapsed on the side of the road.

After the attack it took the police two weeks to send a detective to her house, because police categorized her as a prostitute due to the location she was found and the clothing she was wearing, Nicholas said.

"The fact that they didn't send a detective for two weeks meant that they didn't care to find the guy."

Yes!

I want to help TucsonSentinel.com offer a real news alternative!

We're committed to making quality news accessible; we'll never set up a paywall or charge for our site. But we rely on your support to bring you independent news without the spin. Use our convenient PayPal/credit card donation form below or contact us at donate@tucsonsentinel.com today.